THIS WEEK, important history was made. No, the FBI did not finally arrest the world's most wanted man after finding Osama bin Laden quietly playing darts in a community centre on the Isle of Skye. We didn't find a cure for leukaemia either. Neither were we able to psychologically undo the unimaginable damage done to two generations of Austrian children at the hands of an actual psychopathic monster.

No. Something historical happened that can shield us temporarily from the sometimes relentless grimness of human reality: at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield, Ronnie "The Rocket" O'Sullivan beat Stephen Hendry's record for the number of maximum 147 clearances made in a professional career.

O'Sullivan's latest 147 did indeed rocket past Hendry's eight to a new, Ronnie-shaped world record of nine. O'Sullivan has beaten one of Hendry's records! At last! Ahahahahaha!

Some of us have been waiting years for this. We lifelong snooker fans spent the 1990s aghast as Cyborg Stephen, Destroyer of Dreams, became the greatest snooker player in the history of the game by never missing anything. Zzzzzz!

Hendry single-handedly took the fire, tension and rock 'n' roll charisma right out of the game for a full generation - and Jimmy White's title-winning chances with it. The swine!

O'Sullivan's victory this week, then, is a victory for the best of humankind, the triumph of "wayward genius" over "dogged perfectionism", and the universe - for several minutes after Ronnie punched the air and declared he would spend the £147,000 prize money on a convertible Bentley - was a just and magical place.

Then, naturally, Stephen Hendry rose up - with the indignation of the newly-shot undead - and had a go at Ronnie's brand new record, going for his ninth 147, until he missed the last red. Missed it! Ahahahahahahaha!

Then world number 14 Ali Carter also completed a 147 and the prize money was split between the two, with Carter now looking forward to purchasing "a Ford Focus convertible".

Meanwhile, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry were squaring up in the semi-finals like moustachioed Mexican stand-off madmen and the nature of the universe, once again, was about to be profoundly tested.

This bank holiday weekend, as the World Snooker Championship clacks to its conclusion, let's raise a toast to the magical properties of sport in general, and snooker in particular. The sporting realm is a hermetically-sealed bubble of human endeavour where the struggle between good and evil only exists in whoever you love and whoever's stopping your beloved winning.

Snooker, unlike football, is a personal experience best appreciated alone, sober, in front of the TV, all the better to lose your conscious self completely inside the science that's taking place. It's as mesmerising as magic, possibly as addictive as heroin - a mathematical vortex as logical as molecular physics where the concept of tiny angles make for colossal, heart-pumping thrills. When Ronnie cleared 147 this week, hearts leapt out of clothes.

It was my dad, back in the 1970s, who introduced me to snooker. And only we in the family loved it, leaping onto the couch for Pot Black in the days of Ray Reardon, Dennis Taylor and the first of the wayward renegades, Alex Higgins, a greater influence on a rock 'n' roll generation than anything to do with the Sex Pistols.

Like any passionately discovered pastime - be it gardening, skydiving or purchasing half a Bentley - once the spark is lit, the flame tends to burn forever. Sometimes, it can even "save" your life.

Four years ago, in the literal wake of the death of my mother, coming back to an empty flat in London seemed like a terrifying journey into the heart of an emotional igloo, on the edge of an Arctic glacier, with the sound of wind for company.

No parents any more already. But there, on TV, like an unfolding blanket of protection, was the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible in Sheffield, already underway, just as it always is in April.

And so, for the next two weeks, snooker helped me live. I sat on the couch as I did as a child, transfixed, processing a lifetime's memories to the sound of the delicate clack; rooting for today's wayward hero, Ronnie O'Sullivan.

That year, Ronnie O'Sullivan won, beating Graeme Dott 18-8 in the final. Dad would've been delighted. Mum wouldn't have cared less but she would've been delighted that we were delighted.

And then, finally, I got up off the couch. (So cheers to you, forever, Ronnie O'Sullivan - and may you win the other half of your Bentley very soon.) Sport, this week, also saved the life of the heroic Frank Lampard, whose heaven-beseeching penalty sent Chelsea to the Champions League finals six days after the death of his mother with not a dry eye in the entire country. Except, possibly, the eye of Alex Ferguson.

This bank holiday weekend, then, as some of us attempt to engage children in some form of sporting endeavour, let's hope they, too, find a permanent lifetime's sporting pal, there for the good times and the bad. And O'Sullivan, having obliterated Stephen Hendry, has made the universe, once again, a just place.

For we Londoners, waking up this bank holiday weekend to find that Boris Johnson is mayor, that's another kind of "snookered" altogether.